


SPINEBARREL

by leradny



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Child Labor, F/M, Fix-It, Force Bond, Found Family, Gray Jedi, Gray Kylo Ren, Gray Rey, Slow Burn, and all the awful abuse that occurs but mentioned or shown only briefly, children as slaves, rey leaves jakku instead of waiting for her terrible parents, very minor self-harm in a later chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-14 01:02:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14124756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leradny/pseuds/leradny
Summary: Three thousand days after her parents left her, Rey looks up and envies how different the sky seems from her world. Jakku is a graveyard sprawling with sunbleached bones over white sand. Meanwhile the galaxy spins above her, dark and teeming with life.





	1. Part One: Six Marks for Six Lost Knights

Three days after Rey's parents leave her on Jakku, Unkar Plutt calls all of the scavengers into the square around the fountain, from younglings to the elderly.

At the square is another scavenger, held down by two of Unkar's burly kind. She doesn't know what's happening, but very soon Unkar announces several things--the scavenger's name, and the scavenger's crime: Stealing rations from Unkar's store. She's seen scavengers steal from each other, but it seems Unkar couldn't care less about that. For stealing from Unkar himself, they'll be marked with an x on their face. He takes a needle and pricks a large black x right on the left cheek. The right one already has an x.

There are other beings with tattoos. She finds a tattoo on a five-armed alien with a stump where the sixth one should have been, his top left arm. On that last shoulder is a black mark more complicated than an x. This alien seems friendlier than most of the others, and she asks him what it means.

"I did not get it from Plutt, if that is what you ask. I am no scavengerrrr." His voice is rumbling and deep. "This tattoo is a sign of my thilda, my village. I am Drugr'rao and I come from the planet Ebrrra in the Dousc system."

"How did you get here, Drugr'rao?"

"Oh, that is a long story--but I am hiding here for a few days while my... frrriends... come back for me. I am more interested in how you came to this place, youngling." He looks around. "Where are your parents?"

Rey frowns. "My parents left me here. But it was a mistake. They'll be back for me soon like your friends."

"A mistake?" With his right lowest arm, Drugr'rao pats her on the shoulder. "Then child, if your parents are not back within a few days, my friends and I will take you to find them--"

"Oi!" Plutt barges in. "Hands off my property. That's been bought and paid for."

Drugr'rao frowns, but steps away.

\- - -

"Hi, Ben."

He looks up from his parchment and brush to see Thlitha standing at the door of the meditation room. She is a flower-person from the mild, sunny Buran-Ydyg system. They don't eat food but subsist on sunlight and nutrients in the earth. They prepare meals by arranging crystals around themselves to bask in the reflected light and standing with their bare feet in the soil. Three grass-like strands of the dark purple petals serving for hair are styled into the padawan braid. In human years, she's older than Ben, but on her planet the beings can live for five thousand years. Sometimes he dares to think that she is the most beautiful being he has ever seen.

She thinks it's hilarious.

"What are you doing?"

"Um..." He looks at his paper, made from pounded tree bark, and the ink made from burnt and dried grass and flowers. "Calligraphy."

"I am not bothered by your hobby being made of plants, Ben." Thlitha sits down next to him. Her skin, or what serves for it, is green and unsettlingly cold out of the sunlight. "Don't you humans eat meat?"

"Some of us," he muses.

"Well, so do my people--in a way," she tells him. She dabs a finger in the ink, tastes it, then makes a face and wipes it off on the edge of her sleeve. "The most fertile soil is made from dead plants and beings. I was sprouted in earth that contained the leaves of my ancestors, the bones of dead creatures, and some of my siblings who didn't make it. One day I'll be part of the earth that my grandchildren sprout from. It's like the Force--but with soil instead."

But her casual acceptance of the Jedi Code is grating. It keeps reminding Ben of how hard he struggles and he can't help but feel jealous of her. She, at least, chose to follow Luke.

As Thlitha watches, he makes a mark on the scroll--first one brushstroke, then three, then six.

They're all terrible.

He crumples up the scroll and throws it out, to Thlitha's protest: "I thought they looked fine."

"It's not how they look," Ben snaps. "I have to be calm while I write this. It's the process, it's--it's meditation."

A meditation that Master Luke asked him to try. A meditation that he's failing at. A meditation that feels a little bit like a metaphor--six brushstrokes that look fine but were made in a chaotic state of mind that would never pass for Jedi.

"Here," Thlitha says. "Take a deep breath, Ben."

"It's not going to help."

"I'll help you."

"What--how--you don't even breathe like we do--"

"Shut up and take it!" she snaps.

He scowls at her, and she returns the favor by having thorns sprout from her limbs until she looks like she's wearing pointed armor. Finally, when neither of them moves, Ben takes a deep breath. When he realizes that the air is fragrant, he nearly chokes. It's a clean, pleasant smell, like fresh fruit or cut herbs.

"What's that smell? Can you make different--perfumes, or something?"

"Yes, you imbecile," Thlitha tells him. "Scents are a part of our language--and they can have some effect on beings that smell. I'd forgotten because no one here understands it--but I remembered now, when you said being calm was part of the process. How do you feel?"

"Actually..." He thinks about it. "Yes... I feel a lot calmer. Thanks."

"Great!" She jumps up and tugs on his arm. "We should tell Master Luke about it!"

"Oh, but--" He stays where he is. "I can't."

"Why? If it helps, why not use it?"

"What will I do if you're not around?"

"That's not the point. I'll be your--your graat'niyeg for a while." The smell changes to something sharp and woody. Thlitha stops to translate. "Graat'niyeg is a thing that happens with the tree people on my planet. When they have a weak sprout, a niyeg, that can't handle a strong wind or rain, they move an elder next to this sprout and tie them together for a while. The elder tree is the graat, the big trunk. I guess--in your language, I think the word is bone or spine. The graat protects the niyeg from rain and wind until their roots are deep and their trunk is strong. When it's done, they're untied and move apart. It's a little like padawans and masters, I guess--"

"I don't like being the weak sprout!" Padawan already irritates him.

"Well, you are. And on my planet, it's not something to be ashamed of."

"Yes, tell me more about how your planet makes you so much better at being a Jedi than me!"

"What does that have to do with anything I just said?" Thlitha demands. Thorns sprout from her skin again, and Ben is about to speak when the world flickers around them--shifting from the academy as it is now to a pile of burning rubble and only six people getting up.

A look at Thlitha, thornless and blanched yellow from shock, reveals that she saw the vision too.

Master Luke appears before either of them can figure out what just happened. Thlitha tells him about the calligraphy and the scent and the graat-niyeg, but leaves out the vision. "I was wondering--I mean, if you think it's all right--if maybe I could be a sort of graat-niyeg to Ben."

"That sounds reasonable. I will speak to Ben later about this." A pause. "What else happened? I sensed so much fear from you two--I thought there was an attack."

"It was--" Ben would finish it with 'nothing', only Thlitha cuts in: "A vision! A vision of the temple being burned to the ground! We both saw it!"

He drops his gaze to the ground, face burning with shame as Luke asks, "Ben, is this true? Did you see this?"

\- - -

There's a creche where some of the kinder scavengers take care of children like Rey. An old red Twi'lek named Juneau sings a song in Ryl to the younglings. Her lekku dance so prettily it can make everyone feel better, but tonight she keeps looking back at the door. It's a different song, and there's both fear and hope in it.

Normally the creche isn't guarded by anyone except the same volunteers, with their scrapped together staves and weapons, but that day Rey came home to find several of Unkar Plutt's guards standing around with blasters.

On the first day, nothing happens. On the second day, there are shots. On the third, there's a five-armed silhouette and a few others, but they too get shot at before they reach the door.

And then things get strange.

There's a harsh whisper, so close it might have been in the same room: "Droog! We gotta go!"

"Who's there?" Rey sits up and looks around, but there's no one besides the other children. Juneau comes to her and gently strokes her face.

"There's no one here, Rey. You're safe with the guards."

"I will not leave her here." Drugr'rao's voice is quiet but fierce.

"It's been three days! We're already late."

"But I must find that child--"

"Are you going to free all the kids while you're at it? Why stop there? How about we free this whole planet all by ourselves and then we'll be home in time for dinner?" There's a long growling sentence in Drugr'rao's language, so angry that she feels a flash of it in her own heart even if she doesn't know what it means. "I know. I know. You think I like this? Leaving children in slavery? But freeing them won't happen in a few days. We can't stay here forever. You gotta pick your fights, Droog."

The rumble of a shuttle from very close by makes all of the children sit up. Then it fades into the night.

But still Drugr'rao's voice sounds in the same growl-language, like a thought of her own. She shouldn't understand something she's never heard before, but somehow she feels the meaning of it seep into her bones. He says, "I will find that human child. I will free this whole planet. I swear on my third left arm."

By morning, the guards are gone. Everyone shuffles around in what passes for normal. Rey remembers why she'd come across Drugr'rao in the first place--his tattoo. In a corner filled with junk that no one uses but can't be bothered to throw out, Rey finds an old dusty bottle of ink that smells nicer than she thought it would. Like dried flowers. She finds a needle in the same spot and wipes it off with something clean.

It's been six days since her parents left her. She wants to count them all. She wants to be sure of the number so that when someone asks her, "How long did you wait for your family?" she can say it. If they come back today, she will only need to make six marks and that will be the sign of her family.

After a lot of pricking, there's a constellation of tallymarks on her right arm. It's just a bunch of short dark lines needled in with black ink. They're wobbly, gathered in a sort of egg-shape. She is glad when the six marks are done though. Not only does it hurt, but sooner or later--she realizes this only after the six marks have been made--she'll run out of skin. And then how would she count the days?

Instead she uses the needle to scratch more marks on the sheet of scrap metal that Unkar Plutt gave her. Piled with desert straw and a few threadbare blankets, it serves as her bed in the creche.

When she loops a cord through a hole in the edge, the sheet serves as a sled. She uses that to drag parts between scavengers and the washing station for a bit of their rations or water in return. She's a youngling and a trustworthy one who wouldn't sneak away some parts for herself. It saved them a bit of work, and often they were loathe to spend more time at the washing station than absolutely needed, so that's how Rey starts to learn about parts.

The thing is, Rey may not steal parts from scavengers herself. But other younglings do. She knows exactly which ones, can see their clumsy hands darting from their sleds to their pockets. But other children aren't her family. She doesn't care whether they steal to survive. So if someone asks which child stole from them, Rey keeps her mouth shut.

The only exception is when someone tries to pin a missing part on her. The first--and only--time it happens, Rey doesn't even have to defend herself. The scavenger looks from Rey to the other child and roars, "What do you take me for?!" He cuffs the boy. Rey doesn't flinch. "I do my counts! Rey's never pinched a screw from me. If you're going to be a liar, be a good one."

The next morning, that same youngling shows up later in the marketplace with a black eye swelling badly. Rey doesn't help him. She doesn't even look in his direction.


	2. the tears will freeze on your face

**Trigger Warning:**  This is the chapter with minor self-harm--Rey scratches herself until she bleeds, and tears her hair out of anger. They are both accidental and more out of misplaced aggression rather than intentional self-harm, but she does still hurt herself.

\- - -

One thousand days after her parents left her, Rey has grown a bit from a chubby child to a reedy one, and she's learned the difference between the parts scavengers keep for Unkar and the parts they keep for themselves. The ones they toss to the children are all junk. When she tries to turn those in to Unkar, he laughs. So she follows the nicer scavengers into the Starship Graveyard and starts to study them, to carry her own salvage.

She makes a reputation for herself as the quiet one, sharp-eyed. Of course she has to defend herself when someone else reaches for the part she wants, but it's nothing unusual for Jakku. Then other scavengers start offering her things. More rations and water. Rey's sharp eyes see that the rations are less than what she would make if she kept working on her own. And if they offer more than what Unkar would pay for them, they're lying or foolish.

She rubs at where she remembers the six black marks to be, idly counting them in her head. She never removes her wraps. In the daytime they serve as defense from the sun, and at night they ease the cold. She remembers the marks to be black, at least. The thought hovers as she scavenges a few discarded rails and fittings and nuts and bolts to make a staff for defending herself.

She unwraps her right wrist to clean off her new staff, and takes the advantage to view her old marks and is a little upset to find they've faded--all of them grayed. She scratches six more marks onto her scrap metal, in case the marks fade further. When she checks again on her arm after one thousand more days, they are still the same gray--not jet black, but still visible.

She's just finished a mark on her sheet when Juneau calls, "Rey-keella! You are the oldest now that Yuyu has left. Help me with the dia'daal!"

Tonight is the last night of the week, and it's always the day the red Twi'lek makes a dessert from Ryloth for the whole creche. Rey smiles, puts her engraver down and runs to the kitchen where Juneau has steaming water in a kettle.

"I thought we were freezing it, Haoy."

"We are, but boiling water cleanses it. Lift the kettle and pour the water into the ice pot now." Rey tugs on the handle and the Twi'lek tuts. "Be very careful, Rey! The water is hot and you must not fill it all the way to the brim, for the ice will grow."

She pours carefully and helps Juneau carry it outside.

"There, child," Juneau says. "Now we go to sleep and wait for the desert magic to work on it."

In the morning Juneau wakes before sunrise and hauls the ice in, grown several inches beyond the brim of the bucket. It's a group chore to set the bucket upside down and hold heat near the bucket, while others whack the ice out. Then they cut it into blocks with a little hatchet, and finally someone stands at the hand-cranked crusher one of the scavengers made to grind the ice. Juneau hums and fills the empty cups with mashed desert fruits and other flavors.

"My people made dia'daal with all sorts of different flavors from across the galaxy, but the most popular Ryloth fruits were meiloorun or feen."

She sings the dia'daal song in Ryl while she mixed the ice and fruit together. In Basic it goes something like,

"I hold a magic cup in hand  
And here, a magic spoon.  
There is magic in the air  
That gives me magic water too.  
I am magic, watch and see,  
With magical lekku--"

She poured the fruit in, then the ice over it to make a layer of clean white. She makes the most serious face, grasping a spoon with the tip of her lekku and tilting her head sideways to mix the ice and fruit together. It looks so funny that everyone laughs, even the shy younglings, even Rey.

"I turned the water into ice,  
And now it will turn--"

"Blue!" everyone shrieks, and sure enough, the crushed ice turns blue. This is from powdered blue Bantha milk, or sometimes jogan from Lothal.

When she mixes the ice with other fruits, people shout whatever is funniest--either "blue" when it was actually yellow or red, or another color when blue came up again.

The noise and laughter and food draws scavengers. They come to the creche and fix things up or give something in exchange for a glass of dia'daal. Rations, old clothes, parts. "You younglings are still growing," they say. Gruff old humans and aliens, but kind in their own way.

\- - -

Across the galaxy, Jedi Master Luke Skywalker felt the dark dreams of another press upon his own conscience, filled with a pain he had never imagined. He had to lower his shields in order to sense where it was coming from, and ended up at his nephew-padawan's bedside. He thought--briefly--of drawing his lightsaber, of ending things, not only the threat of darkness but also the boy's misery. Yet it was only a thought. So when Ben Solo opened his eyes, it was to his uncle and master standing over him empty-handed, with a grave face.

In another universe, Ben would have seen a lightsaber flaring and risen to defend himself.

In this universe, Ben asks: "Master? What happened?" Luke senses a long-buried fear arise, a thought of his parents dying before he could go back to see them. Or, they are alive but they have forgotten him, they no longer love him.

"Nothing happened," Luke assures him.

"But why--" Ben looked around. "Why are you here, then?"

"Ben, in your dreams I have sensed much fear and anger," Luke said. "A great deal of darkness.

"No, Master, please--I'm not Dark--"

"And this darkness is not to be feared," he finished.

"What?"

"Come walk with me," Luke says. "I will tell you about your grandfather Anakin Skywalker. He had a great darkness in him which he overcame. And now I realize it was because I acknowledged him as my family, reminding him that once there was light within him. I cannot do the same for you while trying to put aside the fact that I am your uncle."

Ben reaches for his lightsaber out of habit, but Luke stops him. He unhooks his lightsaber from his belt and puts it on the table next to Ben's calligraphy set, and they leave their weapons behind.

\- - -

At sixteen Standard years old--two-thousand, five-hundred, and fifty-five days after her parents left her--Unkar gives her a choice: Her first choice as a grown woman on Jakku. She could stay within the village of scavengers, or leave to make her own home.

These choices were both spoken of as graciously as if they were fully functional ships with fresh paint. But Rey knows better. Everyone does. The villagers all remained enslaved to Unkar Plutt until their deaths. Venturing alone into the sands often led to death, though some scavengers were known to make a life for themselves in the open desert.

Rey makes her choice. She wants to be free of Unkar, or as free as she can get. She gathers up her food and water, a doll she'd put together from an orange flight suit, and a helmet she'd scavenged. There are only a few people in the village who she cares about. These people she says goodbye to, and the most upsetting reaction is from Juneau, who cries and wails as if Rey was dying, not leaving. "Stay here, Rey-keella! The desert will eat you alive!"

And while Rey very nearly gives in, she remembers: If she leaves, she won't have to do what Unkar says, not all of the time. She will be free.

She hugs Juneau hard, and the old Twi'lek gives her more water and portions, enough for several day.

Juneau has a big heart, but Rey feels like this is less of a gift and more like a warning--like Juneau is giving Rey time to change her mind. Or, Rey doesn't remember where she learned it, this is what scavengers call a 'last goodbye'--if someone they care about is dying, they're plied with as much food as can be spared for a last meal.

Rey won't change her mind. But she won't die, either. She knows it somehow. She holds her hands out with a space between them and says, "Kei'nata tun, Haoy." Juneau, weeping, clasps her red hands over Rey's pale pink ones. They are still longer than Rey's, but showing joints and tendons from age. And the tips of her red lekku twine together in front of her, a gesture she makes often to the younglings in her creche. It means 'I love you' in unspoken Ryl.

She gets on her speeder and waves to Juneau and the younger orphans, then revs up her speeder. One last glimpse behind reveals a single glimpse of the village. Then it's swallowed up in a cloud of white sand and dust on the horizon.

She knows the major stopping points on the way to the graveyard of ships, which would be close enough to the village for turning in parts but far enough that his influence would be minimal. She meanders from oasis to oasis, stopping at each one to rest, to drink, to get the sand out of her speeder, to pick up bits of scrap metal so she can scratch more marks into them.

(She should stop counting, but something in her whispers to keep on, just in case her parents were held back by something they really couldn't help.)

The sun beats down hardest at noon and that's when everyone rests. Unkar did, and couldn't be bothered to keep an eye on the scavengers. Rey follows the custom, heading for the nearest oasis, or at the very least a deep trough between dunes for shade.

Crossing the gently sloping stoss side of a dune, Rey doesn't find the oasis she was looking for, but she does find an AT-AT wreck, already gutted of useful parts and half buried in the sand.

It's no oasis but better than the side of a dune. She waits and watches for a while in case someone's already moved in--or there are dead stormtroopers inside--but she can't find a door and none of the panels have been propped off, nor does anyone answer when she raps on the hull. So she pries off a panel herself and gratefully heads inside.

Truthfully it's not much cooler, but at least the sun is blocked. After a few moments with the panel off, an acceptable breeze sweeps through the oil and fuel soaked innards of the walker, making it somewhat more bearable.

She drinks, eats, rests until the sun has dipped closer to the horizon. And with no one to bother her, she prods at the circuitry inside, noting that the electrics are badly beaten but could be fixed up with some work. She decides this is as good a place as any to stay for the night if she can't find the oasis.

There's an awful lot of sand spilling in from an unknown source, taking up most of the floor room. She doesn't want it to collapse on her no matter how short her stay is, so she digs around for the source of the leak and feels something--something not metal, nor flesh or bone, yet vaguely familiar. On instinct she brushes away the sand, finding the thick fleshy taproots of a desert plant. When she carefully pulls the whole thing out of the crack in the hull, she finds a little green spinebarrel in her hands.

 _Yes, I live here_ , the plant seems to say. _So can you._

She smiles and puts it back in the sand for now, then gives it a drink of her water.

This close to the ship graveyard, people won't bother with an AT-AT that looks thoroughly cleaned out except to stop in for the night, and only if they can't make it to the oasis--which she's certain is nearby. So she can make this her home. As a reward for finding shelter only a few days after she left the village, Rey decides not to work for the evening.

As the sun sets, finally giving a true respite from the heat, she eats a ration and digs out her helmet and her doll. The night goes dark and stars blink into view one by one. When the desert gets too cold for her to stay outside, she crawls back in and props the panel back into place. She scratches a mark into the sheet and uses the mound of sand as a makeshift bed. Once she puts her blanket on top, it's warm and giving without getting into her clothes.

She checks the six marks on her arms, still the same gray as before, then curls up, already dozing. A thought strikes her--she can almost feel the spinebarrel growing, as if it's another creature within arms' reach. Wondering who this stranger is that's sharing their space.

Odd, yes--but not unpleasant.

It's the nicest night of her life.

On the very edge of the balance between sleeping and waking, Rey thinks she hears Juneau sighing, "Oh keella, I hope you are safe out there."

She smiles and whispers, hoping as hard as she can that Juneau hears it too, "I am safe for now, Haoy. Thank you."

\- - -

The next day Master Luke calls a meeting. He informs all of the padawans that they may have their families visit them rather than remaining in isolation during their studies.

At first there is utter silence. Then, in the Force, a previously unnoticed tension dissipates and it manifests in different ways across the twelve students. A six-armed Ebranite named Manr'rao cries quietly and says something in her growl-like language which feels like 'Thank you.' Next to him, Thlitha smiles and a sweet perfume fills the air. It reminds Ben of a day when he was two and cried himself to sleep against his father's chest.

Before long there's a lump in Ben's throat.

\- - -

When Rey wakes up at dawn, she climbs the highest dune and reorients herself. The ship graveyard is visible in the distance, where it always is, but a little bit westward she spots a clump of trees and gratefully heads there to refresh her water supply.

After checking her six marks, she's reminded of the being with a missing sixth arm, the fierce yet compassionate warrior who cared so much about younglings. She wonders for the first time in thousands of days if Drugr'rao is still out there. If he's still searching for her. He swore on his third left arm, which seemed to be a sacred thing among his people.

She hopes Juneau isn't still sad. Morning is washing time, so Juneau can set the wet things out to dry in the sun.

She piles a few blank sheets of metal on the wall of her AT-AT, then heads outside for a taste of the cool night air. Looking up, three thousand days after her parents left her, she envies how different the sky seems from her world. Jakku is a boneyard sprawling with sunbleached bones over white sand. Meanwhile the galaxy spins above her, dark and teeming with life.

Her parents could be out there, waiting for her.

But she barely remembers them beyond the last "I'll be back for you, sweetheart."

She tries to think of her mother and only sees Juneau. Tonight is the last night of the week, dia'daal time.

On the floor of her new home, Rey tries to imagine her own parents, what sort of dessert Mother would make at the end of the week. Or maybe it'd be another day. Or every day. Would there be others coming to share it with them?

But she only sees a shadowy figure with the same three buns she wears. She only sees the six gray marks on her arm. Before long there are tears streaming down her face and Rey wipes them off quickly. And even now she can still only imagine Juneau wiping her tears, not her own mother. Whenever Rey cried the Twi'lek would swoop in and dab at her face with a cloth, saying something in Ryl that went, "Don't cry, Rey-keella. The tears will freeze on your face."

The next morning--two-thousand, five-hundred, and sixty-two days after her parents left her--Rey wakes up, stiff. She puts her hair in three buns. She eats a few rations. She picks up her engraving stick--and halts.

She knows more about Ryloth than whatever planet she came from. She has grown up with the Coruscant accent of Imperial training simulations and Plutt's rough lowbrow version, instead of whatever voice she might have had. Juneau raised her with love, other scavengers taught her to survive. Even Drugr'rao tried to come back for her after three days, and he didn't even know her as long as Juneau.

She remembers nothing about her parents, except that she had two that left her on Jakku. She was maybe four or five, less than the time Juneau knew her but more than Drugr'rao. They left her in the desert clad in white, with her hair in three buns.

They don't deserve Rey waiting for them. Blood boiling, Rey throws her engraver to the floor.

"I hate you!" she screams at the wall of marks. She seizes the slabs and knocks them down and stomps on them, knowing her legs and knees will hurt, that flesh will always give way to metal, but she simply doesn't care.

"I hate you!" She tears out the first hair tie at the crown of her head, breaking off a few strands with it. Then she claws at the rest of her hair, sending it tumbling loose, wild and furious as she is.

"I hate you!" She yanks off her arm-wraps, scratching herself so hard that there's a pair of red welts on her right bicep.

"I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!"

She sinks to her knees on top of the mess and holds herself, sobbing. For a few hours she stays curled up on the floor, crying weakly but constantly, on and off. She doesn't even eat Juneau's rations. Then she sinks into a dazed half-slumber and wakes in the dark--still hungry, still missing Juneau fiercely, still hating her parents--to find a silhouette in her doorway. A tall, thin boy, maybe her age, with dark hair and a light colored tunic.

"What's wrong?" the boy asks. His voice is very much a grown man's voice, deep and resonant, so maybe he's not her age at all.

Younger or older, she doesn't want him here. "Go away," she croaks. "The oasis is over there."

"What oasis?" he asks. Before Rey can snap directions at him, he goes on, "You're the one crying on the temple floor. Are you a new padawan?"

"What are you talking about?" She doesn't understand anything he just said. Temple? Padawan? "I'm in my house, you're in my doorway. I don't feel like having visitors, so please go away."

The boy turns around and takes a step and his foot stops in midair. Like he hit the cloaked wall of a spaceship. "I don't think I can leave," he says. "Sorry."

"Great. Welcome to my mess of a house."

"I can't see the mess. Or your house. I can't see anything. Just you." He pauses, then asks, "Why are you hurting so much? I can feel it--your hunger and your pain and anger--you're like a storm--"

That is the very last thing she wants to talk about. Even hearing that question has her start crying again. " _Go away!_ " She picks up the engraver and throws it at him, point first. The last thing she sees is him stumbling back, his large hands flying up to protect his flinching, still worried, boyish face with ancient black eyes.

Her stomach rumbles and she wakes up to the sunset, puffy-faced and red-eyed, wondering if it was a dream.

But when she turns the sheet metal blank side out, wondering how to use them besides for counting days, she looks for her engraver and can't find it. With a sinking feeling she searches the inside of her walker and finds nothing.

The engraver is still outside, sticking upright in the sand, where she'd thrown it at the boy. No footprints, however. Physically, it seems that there was no one here at all.

Sun madness, she thinks--but no, she'd been inside all day. Hungry, she tries, but she's always hungry and why would she go mad from it now?

A dream, then. A dream she had while she was awake. Or one of the vivid dreams that could very nearly have happened in real life. She'd dozed off and she didn't know it.

But no matter how hard she tries to convince herself it was a dream, her skin crawls. She decides to go back to the creche and visit Juneau. They'd catch up, Rey would return the food and reassure her that she had a home and a way to get her own rations. And reassure herself that she wasn't mad. She's just a scavenger eking out a life for herself on Jakku. She'd had a strange dream. Aren't all dreams strange?

The scratches on her bicep are not deep but a bit of blood has dribbled down. Juneau will fuss over it. She sighs, eats a ration and drinks some water so her head will stop hurting. She dampens a cloth and cleans the scrapes with a wince, knowing there was sand and grease under her fingernails and even a scratch could get infected. Or so Juneau told her.

Her hair constantly gets in her face and while she doesn't need to put it back in her three buns, she still needs to tie it back. Her cords are all broken, so she ends up braiding it tight and tying it back with a scrap of cloth. As she falls into the tedium of everyday life, she checks on the marks on her arm. They haven't faded at all, still a solid gray, but now--after realizing that she hates her parents, that she can't think of them without getting angry now--it's less reassuring and more unwanted. She's glad she stopped at six marks, now. Metal can be remade into something different, and more importantly metal doesn't hurt the way skin does.

\- - -

"Ben," Master Luke says during meditation. "You're like a storm. What are you thinking about?"

"I had this dream about a girl." Next to him--because Thlitha had insisted that she literally stay at his side in proper graat'niyeg fashion--he hears a giggle. Luke raises an eyebrow but Thlitha doesn't even bother to hide it. "She was crying on the floor of the temple and so hungry I could feel it myself--and I asked her what was wrong and she threw something at me."

The giggles are for a different reason now. Thlitha tells him, "You don't just ask a girl what's wrong when she's crying, Ben!"

"What was I supposed to do?"

"Leave her alone!" all the female Padawans chorus.

"I tried, but I couldn't leave! It was so awkward."

"Strange," Master Luke says. "You felt her hunger? It wasn't your own?"

"Yes. It was so sharp--I've never been that hungry in my life. I thought she was a new padawan, but she wasn't here when I looked around the temple. I think she lived in a desert."

"A desert."

"She said something about an oasis..." Ben shrugs. "Anyway, it was a dream."

"Dreams can be important, Ben," Master Luke says. "Deserts, too."

Yes. Their family came from Tattooine.


End file.
